Hollywood a Brief History

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Lesson 3Early years of HollywoodStudio culture and Genres

Subject:understanding cinema

Faculty Name:Amol Jadhav

Deviprasad Goenka Management College of Media Studies (dgmcms.org.in)

Batch:FYBA- FTNP

India’s premier M-school


+ Kinetograph and Edison

Thomas Edison’s patented Kinetoscope which was kept in his studio Black Maria was argued to be an instrument developed prior to cinematogrph in order to capture moving images.

Due to which, Edison claimed that cinematograph is a copy of his invention and levied heavy royalties on movieproducers who shot movies. After some time, his troopsstarted bashing up movie units if they were found filming.

Frustrated with this anarchy, group of producers and filmmakers moved to Californian town of Hollywood where they found apt location and conditions for filming.

Later on, this small town of Hollywood was developed asa capital of one of the largest movie businesses in the world.


+Edwin Porter

Edwin Porter was filming a live action documentary with fire brigade in 1902 and while this project, he came to conclusion that situations can be staged.

He established new norms for films by making A great train robbery (1903) which was considered a pioneering attempt in cinema.

This was the first film that was about 800 ft. long with 10 min. duration. This film overthrew many old conceptions and was extremely popular.


+Movie Theatres

After the grand success of The Great train Robbery, there was a need of common dedicated places where films would be screened. Thus films moved from salons and were screened in a which were called Nickelodeons.

These were small salons or halls where movies were screened for as cheaper rates as a nickel or two.

Many producers arrived at Hollywood with their crew and occupied every inch of this town. Carl Laemmle (Universal),Adolf Zukor (Paramount), Sam Goldwin (Goldwyn Pictures, later on MGM), Albert and Harry Warner (Warner Bros.)formed the formidable names in films production and business. This paved way for the ‘studio era’ of Hollywood.


+David Wark Griffith After apprenticeship with Edwin Porter, D. W. Griffith

joined Bioscope and made few short films. He defied the conventional ways of film making and brought about revolutionary changes in camera and lighting techniques.

He successfully attempted spectacular sequences.

He worked on a feature length, 40 min. film- Birth of a Nation which was based on the struggle of Black American slaves in South.

This film received positive reviews due to its strong social message Griffith receivedan acclaim.

He is considered to have modernized thefilm making process and invented a famous terminology, “Lights, Camera and Action !!”


+David Wark Griffith His next film Intolerance (1916) set new records of

films. This was one of the earliest big budget films that saw a manually constructed set that mapped for almost 1 km. and featured around 2000 junior actors.

This film had an extravagant grandeurwhich provided a new definition to setdesigning.

Griffith is also known to have introducedmood lighting. This paved a way for closer and definitive definition of expressions and moods of the situations.

He also introduced tight close shot, close shot and long shot which added more meaning to making and viewing experience.


+Long, Close and Tight close Shots

Long Shots Close Shot

Tight Close shot (Extreme Close)


+Early Genres Griffith formed his new film company Mutual in 1915

and its productions were decisive in terms of both- commercial and critical success.

Tomas Ince ( westerns, Invaders ), Griffith (social drama, Birth of nation) and Mack Senette (Slapstick Comedy, Chaplin) were responsible for establishing distinctive genres and their audience. (as shown below)

New trends of filming and outdoor sequences were practiced.

Their genre based films set new stereotypes which resulted in box office collections.


+ Ince carefully used pre-planning his films on paper

inventing the use of a detailed shooting script which also contained information on who was in the scene, and the scene plot which listed all interiors and exteriors, cost plans and so on, and then meticulously breaking down the shooting schedule so that several scenes could be shot simultaneously by assistant directors.

This disciplined way marked Ince emerge as creative producer- one who would control production creatively and also get done several productions at once with the help of crew.

Slapstick comedy was developed by Mack Senette with Mable Normand and Charles Chaplin. His hillarious car chase sequences and custard pie experiments proved tobe highly grossing for the genre.


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Sources:

How to read a film- James Monaco

Oxford History of World Cinema- Geoffery Nowell- Smith

Tales of Cinema- Ganesh Matkari

Hollywood a Brief History

Education

Transcript of Hollywood a Brief History